I was reading the  TIME interview with Dave Chapelle, and the way he’s tripping, it reminds me of the (first) time Prince retired from making music. Right when shit was blowing up around Purple Rain (movie, soundtrack, videos, etc.) Prince said he was retiring and putting out an album he’d already made, Around the World in a Day, but that was it. No lead single for the album, no video, and why? Because he was "going to go look for The Ladder". And why was he doing that? Because "sometimes it snows in April".

Of course, this is on the heels of his first bad press, and people already think he’s loopy, so they just figured he’d completely lost it. But of course, the new album comes out and goes to number one, he did end up doing a single with a video (Raspberry Beret) and the capper on that album was called "The Ladder".

The heart of his next album, Parade, was the ballad "Sometimes It Snows In April". So, as always, he wasn’t being nuts. He was just being extremely literal, and didn’t have the patience to explain the inside reference to the people who wouldn’t get it.

If I were Chapelle, I’d do the same thing. Don’t fret that racists are laughing at your gags for the wrong reason: They are. But the rest of us aren’t getting to laugh at all.